Beacon of the day | Former Ward Of State Finds Love, Married 12 Years
October 10, 2021Haydran Wynter, who celebrated his 12th wedding anniversary yesterday, is now relishing the power of love – something he claimed he didn’t get from his parents during childhood.
He surmised that he was shortchanged due to the deep controversy in which he was conceived.
He recalled spending much of his childhood with his maternal grandmother at Highgate, St. Mary.
When his grandmother got ill and fell on hard times, he was about 11 years old. That’s when his father secured custody through the court and took him to Charlemont Housing Scheme in Linstead, St. Catherine.
Wynter claimed that living in a nice house at Charlemont with his father and step-mother was tough, and so he ended up running away from there on at least three occasions.
He also recalled that, while he was enrolled at Ewarton High School, he had to walk several miles between Charlemont Housing Scheme and Ewarton district.
At Ewarton High, Wynter, 13 years old at the time, became involved in a nasty fight with another male student.
His father, who was a soldier, took him to Linstead Police Station, he said.
He was placed into State care – Homestead Place of Safety in St Andrew and subsequently Swift Purscell Boys’ Home in St. Mary.
Wynter stated that, while he was at Homestead, his mother visited him once after not seeing him in 15 years.
He is his mother’s only child, he noted, adding that she gave birth to him before she turned age 15.
Wynter eventually left State care when he was almost 17 years old.
He still does not have a good relationship with his parents, and still does not think they treated him well.
“When it comes to Fathers’ Day and Mothers’ Day, mi get mad,” he told The Beacon. “The way how me grow, sometimes it affects me mentally. It brings out anger in me and mi haffi stop and tell miself, ‘No, Haydran, control yourself; you are now around people who love and care for you’.”
After Wynter left Sate care, a female friend assisted him, and he enrolled in a HEART skills training programme at Clonmel, St. Mary, where he obtained a Level I certificate in Food Preparation.
He eventually relocated to Ewarton where he, at a party in April 2007, saw and instantly fell in love with a young woman – Roxanne Dillon.
He surreptitiously pursued her – getting her number, calling her phone over and over, and remaining silent each time she answered.
When he was tired of doing that, he mustered the courage, approached her, and requested her phone number.
She gave it to him. And he called.
“After we started to talk, he said he want me to be his wife because mi mek him feel loved,” Roxanne said.
She admitted that she wanted “a company” because she, at the time, lived alone with her two children.
However, she did not think Wynter was her Prince Charming, partly because he is four years her junior.
“Because him young, mi never want to get into [a relationship with] him,” declared Roxanne, now 37 years old.
Wynter was ‘short’ on age, but he proved tall on maturity and chivalry.
He score a big point when he offered to accompany Roxanne during her usual walk as a higgler.
“Mi start look at him different because, as a young youth, him start walk and sell things with mi,” Roxanne said. At one point, Wynter even took over the business.
Roxanne recalled that, when she eventually started to work as a bartender, Wynter’s love for her and her two children became clearer.
“Him wash mi children clothes and send them to school,” she said. “Him cook mi dinner and, when mi a come off work, him come meet mi. Him mek mi feel a different way than even my children dem father mek mi feel.”
The bond strengthened, and Roxanne got pregnant with a set of twins, who, sadly, passed away.
The death shattered the young couple.
They got married the following year – in October 2009, and produced a daughter whom they named Adrianna.
Neither of the two expected to get married as young as they did, but they have no regret.
Roxanne, now more than ever, thinks Wynter is not longer chasing after all the girls that pass by.
Wynter, who operates a restaurant and bar with a friend in Ewarton, thinks he knows much more than business.
Being married for 12 years, he considers himself qualified to give sage advice about marriage.
“No matter the struggles that you go through in life, you can hold on and try to make it work,” he encouraged other young couples.
By Horace Mills, Managing Editor
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